(3)Auron vs (11)Vincent Valentine 2018
Ulti's Analysis It dawned on me during this match that Auron always seems to be in matches against other badass male characters, which is probably just a quirk of bracket placement but it's kind of silly when you actually look at his history. He has gone against Cloud, Scorpion, Sephiroth, Big Boss, Ganondorf, Alucard, Sub-Zero, Crono, Chris Redfield, Pyramid Head, Shadow the Hedgehog, Ryu, Bowser, Marcus Fenix, Sonic (he counts as a cool and badass male character, shut up), Kratos, Zero, Squall, Revolver Ocelot, Ezio, Vincent, Geralt, and Snake. It's nuts how long that list is and how relatively few rematches there are, all without him ever facing Link, the king badass of GameFAQs itself. Auron is this remarkably consistent upper midcard dude that wins matches every year at the bottom of the bracket and is great for people who like consistent characters to adjust stats with. This year he added Vincent to the list, and man was this embarrassing for Final Fantasy 7. While this wasn't quite as trashy as the Vincent we saw during that hellacious match picture in 2013, this was still really bad and I dare say Magus might have done better. This was well over 60% at one point, and Vincent's only saving face was bleeding Auron's percentage for awhile. I would love to say Vincent might have made a game of this a few years ago back when everyone believed in the dude, but his recent performances give me serious doubts there. What exactly has Vincent done that's supposed to give me any faith in him? He did well in 2005 when he debuted. Okay, sure. He beat Dante and went 50-50 with Squall. Then he had a close match with Ganon before getting 48% on a neutered Sonic, overperformed in lol 4ways, and collapsed a bunch as the years have gone on. Auron has always been good. Vincent is all over the place. It should be no surprise to anyone this match was never close, and from the looks of it Board 8 pretty much all knew Auron was taking this fourpack. He was the overwhelming favorite in this division period and was definitely performing like it. Tsunami's Analysis Bracketmakers were not fooled here; 37.61% may not sound high for a second-round match, but it's higher than three of the previous four winners. Besides, Vincent was a slight underdog in Round 1, and Auron himself had under 70% prediction percentage in Round 1. So let's look at the Gurus instead! ...Whoa. Board 8 loves to hold on to the past. Once they're convinced that someone is strong, it takes a while for them to accept that they aren't. And in particular, there's this feeling that even if a Final Fantasy 7 character is naturally a little weaker than their opponent, they'll pull off the win anyway if that opponent is from a Final Fantasy game other than 7. And honestly, FF7 does have a damn good record against other FF games. Squall beat Aerith twice in 2007, and Auron beat Aerith in 2010, and Kefka beat Zack in 2013. But that's it for FF7 characters losing to characters from other FF games, and it's not just Cloud and Seph who keep the record afloat--Vincent beat Squall in 2005, and Tifa, Aerith, and even Zack all have wins against other FF characters. (Though admittedly Aerith's is pretty weak.) And when something doesn't fit Board 8's preconceived narrative, they like to come up with excuses for why the result isn't "legitimate". The single highest-profile Board 8 failing is Knuckles beating Magus when literally no one in Guru, Oracle, or Board Odds Project predicted it. It no longer qualifies as the "Most Embarrassing Result" because that's measured by the difference between the Gurus and the casuals and the casuals were surprised by that too, but it was a complete blindsiding and it came because Magus was fed to Crono in 2004 and rather than trying to figure out what the degree of SFF was, the adjusted X-Stats just gave him his 2003 number, which was entirely bogus. The reason I bring this up is because nearly everyone wanted to make excuses for Vincent's 2013 performance, namely that he'd been sabotaged by a picsmith. (They refused to use "rallies" as an excuse, even though that was a much better one, because admitting that Mewtwo was rallied meant they couldn't call him a FRAUD for not retaining his 2013 strength. And yes, that is a perfectly valid explanation for why Vincent finished in third; Phoenix's consistent overseeding alone should be evidence that his fanbase is dedicated, and as such he retained a greater portion of his natural strength in the presence of a rally than Vincent did.) But in spite of all the justifications available for Vincent, 95.625% of Gurus picked Auron! The Oracles even more so, at 98.5%, though that's understandable because Oracle picks are made far closer to the match itself and Vincent's struggles with Magus made Auron > Vincent even more obvious than it already was. We don't have a list for the matches where we outpredicted the casuals by the greatest amount, but this one probably has to rank up there pretty high. 58.01% difference. Of course, it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of our greatest "triumphs" came in later rounds, because prediction percentages naturally wane there but a lot of times we're still nearly unanimous where Noble Niners are concerned. Safer777's Analysis After the previous round Auron was the absolute favorite. And he won. BUT the strange thing is that people expected Auron to win with more. Also Vincent kept raising the whole match! He started at the 5 minute mark with around 36% and look where he ended. It is FF 7 yeah but still, didn't expected that. Auron is an elite of course. And I believe that even though Vincent lost he still has some power. If people don't give him bad pictures on purpose. I wonder why he did so good back in the day? Seriously. Winning a division in his first appearance! and even breaking the N9 in a multi way poll! Not sure. Both of these characters are so cool based on their designs. Come on now, Auron wears sunglasses as he fights! What more you want? Also funny that not the protagonist of FF 10 is the strongest character from that game, but a party member. Also Auron is consistent all these years. He always does good and he does as expected. This is awesome. Category:2018 Contest Matches